Month: December 2015

As I sit here, closing up shop so to speak, clicking all my to do’s off the list one final time for the year, and preparing to spend some much coveted time with my family and friends, I can’t help but reflect on the year that’s passed.

For Mhairi and I, it’s been one of those years we will never forget, so difficult but so pivotal all at the same time. For us, 2015 was the year where we were seriously tested “is this really what we want?” and the answer came back a resounding “yes!”

Rather than giving up, we dove in deeper, and the results were festivals, awards, press, representation, loads of new friends, an expansion of the show into a 1/2 hour comedy, and most importantly for us, serious confirmation that the sky was the limit for this partnership.

Despite our cultural and (ahem) fashion differences, Mhairi and I share the same sense of humor, work ethic and undying desire to lift people up, to make a difference, essentially we are on the same page, and as result, our collaboration feels effortless and fun.

Looking ahead, 2016 will be all about expanding our collaboration, by first finding, and then working with, all the amazing future colleagues who will become beloved and instrumental contributors to making our 1/2 hour show the best it can possibly be, and we can’t wait to meet them.

As you know, Tallulah fancies herself a revolutionary of sorts, “Saving the World One Sandwich at a Time”, but what you might not know is that we do too. Like I mentioned in our recent interview with BTR Productions, in a world consumed with bad news, where, even in fiction, darker storylines are all the rage, we consider it a conscious act of rebellion to offer up something light.

In fact, it is our most sincere hope for this holiday season and for the new year ahead that through Feathers and Toast, and the soon-to-be show, Tallulah Darling, that we can inspire you to consciously bring more play and silliness into your life. To put on that hat you’ve always wanted to wear, make that recipe you’ve always wanted to try, reach out to people you’ve always wanted to meet, conspire to make others laugh and just, in general, resolve yourself to have more fun, for no other good reason than just because.

It’s like one of Mhairi’s favorite quotes “what will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Its completely and totally up to you. Which leads me to…

Industry Tip #34
Don’t give up before you get to the good stuff.

And without further ado, for your enjoyment, a holiday message from Mhairi and I as seen on WebVee Guide’s Holiday greetings. See you in the New Year.

Off to the wilds of the Highlands so wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and best exciting adventuresome wishes for you for 2016. Thank you for watching the show and see you in 2016! To watch this weeks vlog please click HERE

As many of you know, I just came back from a Digital Detox where I went low tech for a week and 1/2, with no computer, phone and no social media engagement of any kind.

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time on social media for both work and play, I thought this might be difficult, but to my surprise my week of Digital Detox wasn’t difficult at all, in fact, I took to it like a duck to water.

I relished in the permission I gave myself to be free, not looking at my phone, in being present to my loved ones around me, in taking the time to just be. I felt peaceful and happy and it lead me to think, maybe this is a non-issue? It seemed there were no big insights or revelations to report, no earth shattering changes, and then…I went back to social media. Boom. The lesson hit.

Within minutes of being back in the social media game I started to feel that familiar low level anxiety that has plagued me for several years now, but that I had assumed was coming from some yet undetermined source. But after a week of pulling away and then coming back to it, there could be no denying it; my time spent on social media was causing my anxiety. Houston! We have a problem.

The thing is, I have to be on social media. In fact, several of my blogs here are dedicated to it. As an independent content creator it is my one and only source for publicity and without publicity we don’t exist, we’re wasting our time. Social media is a must, or so I’ve told myself, but at what cost? I realized quickly I am going to have to dive deeper and find some middle ground in order to make this work.

Since I truly can’t throw the baby out with the bath water, my first task was to identify what specifically about social media was causing me anxiety.

This was not an easy thing to figure out because there are parts of it that bring me unbridled joy (mainly all the funny and heartfelt videos and quotes people share, and the ease with which I can keep track of all the many people I love) but as I consciously analyzed it further I realized that what might be the problem is the sheer amount of information that can be thrown at you in literally minutes, let alone hours spent on social media.

In one short trip down the timeline I could be exposed to a friend losing a parent, another friends hilarious new show just released, an anger inducing article about a new government policy, then a snopes article about how that article was untrue, then the cutest puppy you’ve ever seen in your life, an article about a breakthrough technology that will change the world as we’ve known it, a reminder about a new movie I want to see, and a veritable smorgasbord of extremism and political “debate” (of which I will use the term loosely because its mostly just yelling at each other) and that’s just in the first 30 seconds.

I’m realizing its not that I can’t handle any one piece of information, its that it’s an unnatural amount of information all at once!! I’ve never been much of a skim-the-surface kind of girl, those who know me well, know that I listen deep and love hard, which is why it should have been no surprise to me that this much information shared all at once can result in circuits blown, but it was a surprise, a surprise I am still barely processing.

So what to do about it? Well for starters I turned off all notifications so that when I am on, I’m on, but when I’m off, I’m off.

Next I’m planning to continue giving myself permission to limit the amount of time I am on social media, even though my monkey brain wants to tell me that will be a disaster. “What about all my fellow content creator friends? Surely they can’t live without me?” I’m just gonna tell the monkey brain to settle down, its the holidays. I’m sure my social media relationships can stand the test of time until I can figure this out a bit.

And third, when I am on social media I am going to be more disciplined, something I never realized I needed to be. I am going to actively choose to limit what I see (a) by practicing the art of skimming and non-attachment and (b) by curating my lists and timelines a bit more carefully. For e.g. among the things I will automatically not pay attention to will be the news (I will receive news only from vetted, factual, non-opinion based news sources assuming those exist) and I will also actively ignore people’s opinions of the news, unless the opinion comes from a moderate who is genuinely trying to learn and share.

Yes I promise to myself here and now that no matter how twitchy I get, I will do my absolute best not to fall into the trap of engaging with extremists of any flavor on social media, particularly those who don’t know they’re extremists, as I realize now that all it does is create the illusion that I am accomplishing something, when really I’m actually just giving them my energy and therefore power.

What I will still respond to and give my energy to is all you lovely people. The conversations with all of you is the highlight of my day, so keep them coming and I will keep the blogs coming.

Unless you tell me you want to hear more about this topic, I will be back to my usual tales of an independent producer starting next week. And that leads me to…

Industry Tip # 33
Social media is more powerful than you think. Its helpful to create some disciplines and healthy boundaries around it in order to stay balanced.

And without further ado I leave you with another Holiday Tip from Tallulah for all our friends who are spending time with their families right now.

I’m back from Digital Detox. Weee! And there are so many things I want to share with you in regards to insights about stepping away from the computer and about pitching (which is Mhairi and I’s latest adventure) but first I wanted to share our latest interview as it was just released today.

While we were in New York, we sat down with our good friends over at Behind The Rabbit Productions as part of their Artist Profile series, to speak about the inspiration behind Feathers and Toast and what we hope to accomplish with the show. I think they did a great job putting this together and hope you’ll take a look.